UPDATE: My first take on Webb’s writing was as you see it — his stuff is gross and badly written. To me, that indicts him as a writer, but the question remains whether it indicts him as a politician. Michelle Malkin points out that Lynn Cheney and Scooter Libby both wrote sexual stuff that describes acts outside of the mainstream (especially Libby). However, neither was running for office and the question remains whether that material should have or would have reflected badly on them if they had run for office. There’s no doubt but that, because Cheney was the wife of a Veep candidate, the media was all over her writing. I therefore expect the same from them regarding Webb’s writing — although my expectations may not be met.

More to the point is the purpose behind any distasteful material included in a book. For example, at Flopping Aces, where Curt has an amazing knack for finding in-depth information, you can see a YouTube video showing brief quotations from racially charged material in Webb’s books. The problem is that I don’t know the context for those quotations. If I, as an author, wished to show that my characters were morally reprehensible, I might put the “n” word in their mouths. It would be a disturbing reflection on me as an author, though, if I put the same words in my hero’s mouth. Suddenly, that would be a David Duke book, and not an exciting good guy (not racist)/bad guy (racist) thriller.
Curt highlights something more disturbing even than the YouTube video, however, which is the incestuous pedophilia that crops up in one of Webb’s books. This time, Curt includes at his blog a post that has lengthy passages from the book. In none of those passages does the author’s tone indicate moral disapproval. Again, though, I lack context. Draw back from those tight quotations and you may discover that Webb is describing a scene set in the heart of “bad guy land.” In that case, this appalling act might be artistically justified. After all, they’re not going to be unsympathetic bad guys if they behave badly.

In any event, the campaign between Webb and Allen seems to be one of the nastiest I can remember, which charges of racism and perverted sexuality flying. I wouldn’t be surprised if many felt inclined to throw up their hands in digust and walk away. I wouldn’t do that, though. I still think the larger picture in Congress demands that those who believe in the conservative agenda need to hold their nose and vote for Allen.

Share this:

Like this:

Vaclav Havel, he ain’t. My first thought is this isn’t really fair to extract bits from Webb’s potboiler novels and serve them up without context — these passages may represent the characters and milieu the author is portraying, however squalid they may be, and not necessarily be indicative of the author’s sentiments or beliefs; however this is politics, and a tight Senate race, during which George Allen has also taken some lumps. Fairness isn’t really a factor. As Clint Eastwood says to Gene Hackman as the end of Unforgiven: “Deserves got nothin’ to do with it.”

This time, it is a sheik in Australia talking about how women are degenerate and the source of all evil. They really believe that, in their mysogynistic world, that women form 1/2 of the Devil’s armies.

It is a very peculiar psychological condition for a man to have, when there are not even any matriarchies in power on this planet. At least not wielding real power, as demonstrated by the ability to obliterate its neighbors.

The places where some anti-women perspectives might be understandable, from the West where women are hailed and given preferential treatment, this kind of resentment from men might be more justified. But that isn’t the source of the resentment, the source is in the Middle East, from those who grew up there and learned its teachings there. And where the culture represses women, it does not empower them, so where forth may any resentment of women come from except the powerful lording it over the weak? How could they fear something that they have such total control over, unless it is themselves they fear and not that which they seek to control?

I’m just wondering since a lot of sociopaths and so forth have it in their heads that women are the source of all evil, and that is why they go on rampages targeting women. Why is there in the human condition, some eternal trigger for this kind of behavior? It is like the Jewish question. For whatever reasons, humans tend to hate and pick on the weaklings, as the source of all evil. Hitler did it, and he was simply extrapolating from base common human nature.

If you believe the Left, then it is not our enemies exploiting this desire to attack the weak, it is us, the pro-war guys. We exploit the weak Iraqis, the weak Palestinians, and target them in order to fuel our military industrial complex. Would true liberals act in such a manner? I believe not. But if they be not true liberals, then what are they?

The human mind and soul is a much darker place to figure out than any nuclear missile launch system based upon hardcore physical principles found in nature.

Zhombre

Helen, you’re right. No one has to read Webb’s novels. And few people do; his works are hardly best sellers. But I suspect Webb just lost the Senate race. His vulgarity and chauvinism have to alienate a number of women voters. And I have some connection to Virginia: was married in Norfolk and have a swarm of in-laws in that state. There are a lot of staid, genteel middle class voters — you’ve got Gators in Florida, Bulldogs in Georgia, but Cavaliers in Virginia — who aren’t going to cast their vote for a vulgarian who scribbles claptrap like this.

But isn’t a write-in essentially the same as sitting out the vote, Zhombre?

zhombre

One could argue that is so. Better to choose, like they used to say in the cotton mills, the lesser of two weevils. However voting remains an individual act and individuals are at liberty to write in a candidate if they so choose, or vote for a third party candidate w/o a chance of winning. A choice honestly made in the voting booth is participation.

Maybe, Bookworm. But I tend to see it as a pledge, on the voter’s part, that they are still willing to go to the extent of registering and voting, even if they don’t like either of the candidates. It is a way to fight against apathy, even if others see it as having no effect.

It is apathy that is the real problem. If Gail sees this on Webber’s account, and sees other negatives on the other candidate’s account, Gail will have to make a choice as to which one is better. Life is full of choices that aren’t fit to a person’s specific specifications and wishes. Democracy never promised to fix the human condition, and it never should. So long as a voter votes, he is thinking about the candidates and who he will be voting for. Which is infinitely better than apathy, the shutting down of thinking because of the excuse that one doesn’t like either candidate. You see it sometimes in combat, when a lieutenant shuts down because every choice he sees is a bad one. He stops thinking, he panics, he freezes, because he is unable to accept the negative consequences of choosing any of the options before him.

Apathy is a defense mechanism of the human mind, to prevent further psychological damage. Any human who fights against his instincts, is doing good, in my view.

Heather

I live in Virginia, and am very interested in this campaign, obviously, but almost didn’t read these comments because I didn’t recognize the name “James Webb”. During this campaign he has gone by “Jim”. You may want to clarify in your post that he is a candidate from Virginia. I also have heard nothing about these writings of his! Thanks so much for letting us know!

[Heather, I did as you requested, and edited the text to identify which Webb wrote the questionable material.]

JJ

That just pisses me off – this crap actually finds a publisher?

I need to find out who his agent is! Finding somebody to publish this stuff – that’s not an agent, that’s a hypnotist.

Webb has the benefit of being a guy who won the Navy Cross, the second highest award available, right below the Medal of Honor.

Of course that doesn’t exactly mean he is going to be a good guy, it just makes him a fighter, and for certain people, that is enough in a politician.

But it does mean this guy has connections and a background, from which to draw upon, whenever he is negotiating for contracts. Book publishing included.

I haven’t heard much about Webb, so it is hard to make a psychological evaluation of him as a person. Let alone predict what he will or will not do in the future. There is the matter of the context, and the only defense I heard was that Webb had seen the scene with the man and his son, in Bangkok (was it) while he was a reporter.

So I suppose he included it in as a gesture of verscimilitude.

Observing the grenade land dangerously close to his companion, First Lieutenant Webb simultaneously fired his weapon at the enemy, pushed the Marine away from the grenade, and shielded him from the explosion with his own body. Although sustaining painful fragmentation wounds from the explosion, he managed to throw a grenade into the aperture and completely destroy the remaining bunker. By his courage, aggressive leadership, and selfless devotion to duty, First Lieutenant Webb upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and of the United States Naval Service. [1]

Judging by the Wiki copy of the citation for his award, Webber is certainly aggressive if you consider his campaign strategy. I don’t know why he chose the Democrats and stayed with them, considering the Vietnam experience, but hey, not everyone is transparent.

During the 2004 presidential campaign, Webb wrote an op-ed piece for USA Today in which he considered the candidacies of John Kerry and George W. Bush from the perspective of military veterans. He criticized Kerry for his activism against the Vietnam War in the 1970s while affiliated with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, but accused Bush of using his father’s connections to avoid service in Vietnam and also said Bush had “committed the greatest strategic blunder in modern memory” with the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[1]

For someone who appears almost dangerously offensive minded on the battlefield and aggressively slugging it out on the political field, he is rather passive in terms of foreign policy and foreign wars. Not exactly consistent.

On September 7, 2006, Webb released his first television advertisement.[4] It featured footage of a 1985 speech by Ronald Reagan praising Webb at the secretary’s alma mater, the United States Naval Academy in 1985.

The next day, an official working for the Reagan Presidential Foundation faxed a letter to Webb’s campaign on behalf of former first lady Nancy Reagan, urging them not to air the advertisement claiming he had no right to accept a compliment from Reagan [5]

A little bit too arrogant, as part of his personality matrix, it seems.

An article written by Webb in 1979, entitled “Women Can’t Fight,”, which five female graduates of the United States Naval Academy said helped foster an air of hostility and harassment towards females within the academy.

Not liberal, but then again the Democrats no longer have any true liberals, leaving rarities like Lieberman around.

He followed that with five other novels, then wrote a work of non-fiction, Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America. The book traces the role of the people of Scots-Irish ancestry in the development of American history and culture. Webb argues that, far from the “cracker” and “redneck” stereotypes often applied to the Scots-Irish, many of whom settled in Appalachia, the American Midwest and the American South, the Scots-Irish were central to defining American working class values and culture. He cites the fiercely independent streak and individualism of the Scots-Irish as laudable values, and their political pragmatism as explaining their role as swing voters in elections, in recent decades as Reagan Democrats, and as Ross Perot and Reform Party voters.

This is interesting, because Walter Russel Meade used that book as supporting material for Meade’s thesis on Jacksonianism.

What it also means, is that this guy is perhaps Jacksonian in his aggressive tactics, but extremely parochial in his prejudices, either racial or cultural. Remember, he didn’t write the Meade article on Jacksonianism, he is not an urban individual that shares Meade’s cosmopolitan traits.

Webb wrote the story and was the executive producer for the 2000 movie Rules of Engagement, which starred Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson.

I saw that movie. He is not a Haditha/Murtha, considering the storyline and plot of the court scenes in RoE.

His heroes are Andrew Jackson, Ted Williams, and his father.[citation needed]

All in all, Webb’s personality seems to be of the Jacksonian variety. But not the urbane and cosmopolitan variety seen in the newest generation of Americans, but rather an older and cruder version, more beholden to the Scots-Irish cultural template than the international one, that I ascribe to as a Jacksonian.

The fact that he opposed the war as a strategic blunder is interesting. Because a real Jacksonian would oppose wars, but when wars are going on, would support it to the hilt. The real question is, will Webb do that if elected? It all depends upon how much of a Jacksonian is he, and what other factors might contribute to his personality.

Webb won a varsity letter for boxing at the U.S. Naval Academy. In his second-class (junior) year, he fought and lost in a controversial decision to Oliver North.

HIm and Olly North seems to go back a while. Funny how these things work. North goes to the conservatives and for Fox, Webb goes to the Marine Corps and the Democrats. Wack, as wack can be.

At the same time, those around Bush, many of whom came of age during Vietnam and almost none of whom served, have attempted to assassinate the character and insult the patriotism of anyone who disagrees with them. Some have impugned the culture, history and integrity of entire nations, particularly in Europe, that have been our country’s great friends for generations and, in some cases, for centuries.

It is strangely peculiar, that a Jacksonian would defend Europe. No Jacksonian would ever defend Europe, in any shape or form, except perhaps to stick up for the Irish in Britain. So how much of a Jacksonian is he, or has he mellowed since time has had its chance? One must remember, Webb is also a product of the Vietnam generation. He talks much about how others didn’t serve and tried to dodge, but I do not really believe he understands that Vietnam shaped him far more than it shaped Bush and Rumsfield. Webb doesn’t want the US “bogged down” in Iraq because he doesn’t want another Vietnam. His position cannot be taken independently of his own life experiences, and it should also not affect overall strategy.

Invading Iraq was a bold strategy, a strategy made independent of the fears of Vietnam, for good or for worse. While there is some truth to Webb’s claims, it is not enough. It is not enough to see who Webb is. Is he a fighter, or is he like mcCain, plagued by his past demons. Is he a fighter for Democrat human rights, or is he a prejudiced individual, harboring ill will towards groups of people solely because of his Irish-Scotts background?

Bush has yet to fire a single person responsible for this strategy. Nor has he reined in those who have made irresponsible comments while claiming to represent his administration. One only can conclude that he agrees with both their methods and their message.

Or maybe Bush allows free wheeling deals, more appropriate for a board room than a battlefield command, a command most familiar to Webb. Webb talks about how Bush and Co harshly attack people that disagree with them. So this means Bush doesn’t punish his own because he agrees with them, right? No, rather, maybe in fact Bush doesn’t attack people harshly at all, which is the problem, regardless of what their politics are.

To put it bluntly, he attacked the wrong target.

Any target that the commanding officer says is the target, is the right target. Webb, as an officer, should have known this. And he does. As Jacksonian he should double know this.

This guy’s positions are inconsistent with his record, for some reason. Something is triggering his acceptance of the Democrat party, and it is pretty major. But I cannot find the data right at this moment, but I am sure it exists.

erp

The point here isn’t Webb’s book. He can write about anything he wants and the reading public can read it or not, the point here is whether we want another congress critter without a moral compass. One who gladly “smears” his opponent by outing his grandmother as Jewish and calling him out for using a word unknown to most of us and one which as it turns out, is not derogatory, but who gets all huffy when his own published work is exposed and criticized.

I hope Virginians will vote for the right candidate for the right reason. Adding another Democratic seat in the senate to vote against the president’s initiatives would put us all in a more dangerous position. Allen may not be the ideal candidate, but IMO Webb would be a far worse choice.

The next week or so may prove very entertaining, but don’t get distracted, please remember to get out the VOTE.

Lynne Cheney can’t do it all by herself. Whatta girl!

Writing this blog is a labor of love. However, if you'd like to donate money for my efforts, please feel free to do so: